Cariboo Notes Vol 28-1

Volume 28 No. 1 Spring 2011 British Columbia Genealogical Society, Quesnel Branch Cornish Water Wheel at Quesnel, B.C. An Original Drawing by B. Patenaude VOL. 28(1) CONTENTS: The Archibald Rory McDonald Family..................................................... 3 Web Bytes.................................................................................................. 8 Twigs – Female blogging; wordle.net; Canada in 1900 ............................ 9 Dear Auntie Gen – BC Wills ..................................................................... 10 Blog Log – Jewish records in Poland ........................................................ 11 Russian keyboard site ................................................................................ 11 Member Lookups....................................................................................... 12 Member Spotlight – Leanne Broughton .................................................... 13 Books for Sale............................................................................................ 14 How to Contact Us..................................................................................... 15 Club Information........................................................................................ 17 Check out our website at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bcqgs/ We’re on facebook! See http://www.facebook.com/pages/Quesnel-Genealogical- Society/152467561474792 where there are links to helpful sites. Thanks to Lynda for setting this up. Auntie Gen’s Tip If you find yourself having to enter the £ (pounds sterling) symbol in a program which doesn’t have a symbols menu (such as Family Tree Maker), the shortcut is Alt 163 (ie. hold down Alt while pressing 1 then 6 then 3). Heredity I saw a duck the other day. I thought, “Oh, no! It's just my luck, It had the feet of my Aunt Faye. Someday I'll look just like a duck!” Then it walked, was heading South. I sobbed to Mom about my fears, It waddled like my Uncle Ralph. And she said, “Honey, dry your tears. And when it turned, I must propose, You look like me, so walk with pride. Its bill was formed like Aunt Jane's nose. Those folks are all from Daddy's side.” 2 THE ARCHIBALD RORY MCDONALD FAMILY Written by Ruth Roberts, granddaughter of Archibald Rory McDonald, in 2009 Immigrants to this beautiful province of BC have travelled here by different means of transportation from sailing ship, steam ships, airplanes, trains, automobiles, and by horseback. My paternal grandfather, Archibald Rory MacDonald (aka McDonald), and his three sons came to BC in 1907 on horseback and with 8 pack horses over the Yellowhead Pass from Edmonton to Lac des Roches (near Bridge Lake) in the southern Cariboo. The journey lasted 16 weeks. They had lived for many years near Colville, Washington, but in 1905 when Alberta had become a province, they tried homesteading there at Strome. My grandfather didn't like the prairies - he missed having the mountains around him; so in April of 1907, they sold out and went to Edmonton to wait for suitable travelling weather. On May 1st, 1907 they left Edmonton for the Cariboo. They each had a saddle horse and they had eight pack horses to carry their supplies. They had to camp each night as they were far from civilization. Archibald (called Archie) turned 68 that summer, Angus turned 18, Dan became 16 and Ervin (who became my father 20 years later), had just turned 14 on March first. Archie had two daughters -- Lavena and Ruth (after whom I was named) who, at this time, were living near Colville, Washington where all of Archie's children had been born. His wife, Mary Malinda (Mae) nee Prouty, had died tragically in 1896 following the premature birth of her 6th child who also died. By 1907 Lavena was married and 12 year old Ruth was still living with a maternal aunt who had raised her since Mae had died. There were no roads west of Lac Ste. Anne and of course, no bridges either. Archie and his sons had no compass and no maps. They followed Indian trails when they could find them, the lay of the land, the position of the sun during the days and the flow of the streams and rivers. They just kept heading west to the Cariboo - their destination. They could ford the streams but had to build rafts to cross the rivers. They crossed the Athabaska River in a dugout canoe loaned to them by a man who was on his way to Tete Jaune Cache. He had 3 men following him with packhorses of supplies for a Mr. Finch who was going to build a store there to supply the railroad crews, as the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad was to start building a railway from Edmonton to Prince Rupert, BC later that year. Archie, born July 16, 1839 near what is now called Ottawa, was an experienced 'mountain man' having spent many years prospecting from Mexico to the Yukon. His sons were used to hard work and were quite capable workers. Angus, the oldest, was the most helpful, Dan took care of the horses - he had a gentle way with them - and Ervin was the cook, as Archie thought that this would be the easiest job for his youngest son. This meant cooking over a campfire and often digging a hole in the ground at the base of the campfire, placing the food to be cooked in a galvanized bucket, putting it in the hole and covering it with hot sand and hot ashes. This would be done early in the evening after they had stopped for the night. In the morning the food, usually beans and bacon, would be cooked and ready to eat for breakfast. Ervin carried the all important sourdough starter, which had to be kept warm so that the yeast didn't die, in a jug tied to the saddle horn during the day to keep it warm from the warmth of the horse's body; then during the night he stuffed it into his bedroll so the warmth from his body would keep it warm. He often said that he was 'the highest person' to ever traverse the Yellowhead Pass, as the yeast gave his clothes a distinctive sour smell. 3 They met a few other travellers at times along the Yellowhead Trail and occasionally travelled with them but, mostly they travelled on their own - just a 68 year old man and his 3 teenage sons. They had many adventures and mishaps along the way but no serious accidents other than losing two horses in the muskeg after being 'spooked' by a grizzly bear. A third horse was involved in this but they managed after much effort to extricate her; however, the other horses had sunk too far into the muskeg to be rescued so Archie shot them to put them out of their misery. The first week in July they took a week off from travelling to give their horses a rest and to assist in building the first store at Tete Jaune Cache out of logs. During the 3rd week in August they reached Lac des Roches (or Long Archibald, Ervin, Dan, Angus MacDonald Lake as they named it, as they didn't know it had been named previously) and knew that was where they would start their ranch. They bought land there from Jack Demming, who had been trapping and trading with the Indians plus raising beef cattle, and settled in to build their ranch; but first, they had to get supplies for the winter from Clinton (the nearest store) which was many miles away. As there was no road, only a rough trail, it meant using pack horses again. They also had to complete the papers to purchase the 160 acres from Jack Demming and to transfer his pre- emption rights of a further 320 acres to Archie. There were no neighbours in about a 50 mile radius. While the local Indians hunted and fished in the area in the spring, summer and autumn, they moved to the warmer climate around the North Thompson or Fraser River valleys for the winter months. The MacDonalds were the first family to homestead in the whole area and they were completely on their own on that high Cariboo plateau. Over the ensuing years they built a full- time ranching operation on 2240 acres. Angus and Ervin also had trap lines. They sold the fur pelts in Vancouver. It is interesting to note that it was four years before my father, Ervin, saw civilization again - and that was during a trip to Clinton when he was 18 years old! 4 Archie recognized that roads were needed to transport supplies, ranch equipment and household items and to attract new settlers to the area. In spring 1908 he travelled over the trail to Clinton by horseback, a distance of about 80 miles (the return trip took 6 or 7 days), camping at night along the way, to buy supplies and to ask the BC Government Agent, Mr. Soues, and the Cariboo MLA, Mr. Archibald MacDonald (not related), for a road from Lac des Roches to the Cariboo Road at the 70 Mile House, a distance of about 50 miles. Permission was granted to slash a wagon road. Archie and his three sons did this work with some assistance on the western section of the road from three families who had recently moved into the Bonaparte district. It was a rough road, but passable, as they had no equipment other than shovels, pick-axes, adzes and their own muscles and horses. The Bridge Lake - Lac des Roches district now had a wagon road west to civilization but there was still only the primitive MacDonald Trail (as it was called) to the east to Little Fort and the CN train. To the west the nearest train was at Ashcroft, a distance of about 150 miles. Archie was determined that a road would be built to Little Fort and he spent much time, effort and money on this project until his death in 1929. He corresponded regularly with the BC Government Agent in Clinton, the Cariboo MLA and the Board of Trade in Kamloops soliciting their cooperation and approval.

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